F NIGHT HAWK. 373 
Florida to Hudson’s Bay, yet its history has been involved in consider- 
able obscurity by foreign writers, as well as hy some of our own coun- 
‘try.: Of this I shall endeavor to divest it in the present account. 
\. Three species only, of this genus, are found within the- United 
States, — the. Chuck-will’s-widow, the Whip-poor-will, and the Night 
Hawk. The first of these is confined to those States lying south of 
Maryland ; the other two are found generally over the Union, but are 
frequently confounded one with the other, and by some supposed to 
be one and the same bird. A comparison of Figs. 170 and 171 with 
Figs. 172 and 173, of the Whip-poor-will, will satisfy those who still 
have their doubts on this subject; and the great difference of manners 
which distinguishes each will render this still more striking and satis- 
factory. 
On the last week in April, the Night Hawk commonly makes its 
first appearance in this part of Pennsylvania. At what particular pe- 
riod they enter Georgia, I am unable to say; but I find, by my notes, 
that, in passing to New Orleans by land, I first observed this bird in 
Kentucky on the 21st of April. ‘They soon after disperse ‘generally 
over the country, from the sea-shore to the mountains, even to the 
heights of the Alleghany; and are seen, towards evening, in pairs, 
playing about, high in air, pursuing their prey, wasps, flies, beetles, 
and various other winged insects of the larger sort. About the mid- 
dle of May, the female begins to lay. No previous preparation or 
construction of a nestis made; though doubtless the particular spot 
has been reconnoitered and determined on. This‘is sometimes in an 
open space in the woods, frequently in a ploughed field, or in the 
corner of a cornfield. The eggs are placed on the bare ground, in 
all cases on a dry situation, where the color of the leaves, ground, 
stones, or other circumjacent parts of the surface, may resemble the 
general tint of the eggs, and thereby render them less easy to be dis- 
covered. The eggs are most commonly two, rather oblong, equally 
thick at both ends, of a dirty bluish white, and marked with mnumera- 
ble touches of dark olive brown. .To the immediate neighborhood of - 
this spot the male and female confine themselves, roosting on the 
high trees adjoining during the greater part of the day, seldom, how- 
ever, together, and almost always on separate trees. They also sit 
lengthwise on the branch, fence, or limb, on which they roost, and 
never across, like most other birds: this seems occasioned by the 
shortness and slender form of their legs and feet, which are not at all 
calculated to grasp the branch with sufficient firmness to balance their 
bodies. ; 
find in many other genera, totally different from the present in almost every partic- 
ular, and where the uses of combing its bristles or freeing itself from the vermin that 
persons have been willing to afflict this species with in more than ordinary propor- 
tions, could not be in ay way applied. We find it among the Ardeade, Platalea, 
Ihis, Phalacracorax, and Cursorius, all widely differing in habit: the only assimi. 
lating form among them is the generally loose plumage. I have no hesitation in 
saying that the use of this structure has not yet been ascertained, and that, when 
found out, it will be different from any that has been yet suggested. The very va- 
riety of forms among which we find it, will bear this out; and the presence of it in 
Caprimulgus will more likely turn out the extreme limit of the structure, than that 
from which we should draw our conclusions, It is much more prevalent among the 
Grallatores, and our present form is the only oné in any other division where it is 
at all found.— Ep. s 
